Etan Patz

NEW YORK — Jurors heard closing arguments Monday in the case against a man accused of killing 6-year-old Etan Patz, whose 1979 disappearance while on his way to school helped galvanize the national missing-children's movement.

Pedro Hernandez confessed to the crime in 2012 in a case that has confounded law enforcement for decades. Etan's body was never found, nor was any trace of clothing or his belongings. The defense says the admissions are the fictional ravings of a mentally ill man with a low IQ.

"As I told you in the very beginning, Pedro Hernandez is the only witness against himself," defense attorney Harvey Fishbein said. "The stories he told over...

Related "Etan Patz" Articles

NEW YORK — Jurors heard closing arguments Monday in the case against a man accused of killing 6-year-old Etan Patz, whose 1979 disappearance while on his way to school helped galvanize the national missing-children's movement. Pedro Hernandez confessed to...

Trying a man for murder in the 1979 disappearance of 6-year-old Etan Patz has come with obstacles created by the passage of time: Many witnesses, including the lead detective, have died. Memories of those still alive have faded.
And the piles of...

NEW YORK — The mother of a 6-year-old boy who vanished on his way to school 35 years ago testified Monday that he was trusting but also scared of being lost or alone.
Julie Patz recounted her time living in Manhattan's SoHo neighborhood when her son,...

NEW YORK — Thirty-five years after Etan Patz's disappearance helped ignite a national missing-children's movement, scores of prospective jurors filed into court Monday for a murder trial that eluded authorities for decades.
About 100 people began filling...

NEW YORK — His 6-year-old face became a symbol of parents' darkest fear, animating a national push to find lost children and a cultural shift toward hypervigilant child rearing.
As a suspect in Etan Patz's disappearance heads to trial 35 years later,...

The father of Etan Patz believed for decades he knew who killed his 6-year-old son on the way to school in 1979, and it wasn't the man whose trial he was about to endure.
But after hearing every word of nearly three months of testimony, Stan Patz...

The haunting case of missing first-grader Etan Patz has endured for almost four decades, and deliberations in the long-awaited murder trial stemming from his 1979 disappearance are enduring extraordinarily long, too.
Sixteen days into their...

Jurors deliberating in the 36-year-old missing-child case of Etan Patz said Tuesday they are deadlocked for the second time in 15 days, but a judge told them to keep trying.
The jury sent a midday note saying it was still stuck after...

An enigmatic figure looms over the trial of a man who confessed to killing Etan Patz: the former suspect who some still believe is behind the disappearance of the 6-year-old on May 25, 1979.
Jose Antonio Ramos was never charged in the case that helped...

Thirty-five years after the disappearance of a 6-year-old boy in Manhattan ushered in an era of protectiveness for America's children, trial began Friday for a mentally ill man with a low IQ who confessed to his murder and kidnapping.Etan Patz (AY'-tahn...